The hunt:
I was passing through Hevrice, moving from a northern roam to a southern roam, when I saw an interceptor on D-scan. Quickly scanning it down, I jumped in. En route, I loaded Caldari Navy Phalanx, which is superior to Rage when fighting fast targets, and also has greater range.
The interceptor was leaving as I landed. Unfortunately, I did not catch his destination, so I quickly started to scan him down again. Before I could do so, however, a Wolf landed on the belt with me!
It was toothslayer, also hunting the interceptor. He was not about to waste his opportunity for a rematch, though; he locked me and moved to intercept.
At this point, I had a split second to make three very important decisions:
1) Was I going to stay and fight, or was I going to try and warp out? This one was easy. Of course I was staying.
2) Was I going to reload, or go with what I had in the launchers? This was much tougher. Although my damage type was probably correct, Caldari Navy rockets don't pack the same punch as Rage rockets against targets slower than 600m/s (after being webbed). Switching ammo would leave me with a 10 second dps hole, though. I decided to go with the ammo I had loaded.
3) Was I going to fight up close, or at range? Another tough one. Wolves get a range bonus, but fighting in his falloff should still reduce his dps slightly. It might also push him to use barrage, which hit my best resists. On the other hand, I could try getting under his guns, because Wolves have no tracking bonus. Of course, that's why some Wolves use high tracking guns and tracking rigs. Without time to look at his probable fit, I decided to stay at range, largely because I already had range on my side.
So I moved into a wide orbit - about 5km, which actually left me about 7km from him due to my angular momentum. Scraming and webbing him, I opened fire.
Toothslayer returned the favour, and I was shocked by just how much damage a Wolf can put out when it wants to. I immediately overheated my guns and my repair system, knowing that this would be a very close fight.
I wish I could say that I did something clever at this point, but all I could do is watch things play out. I had complete control of the range, and it was a straight up damage race. A very, very close race.
We both entered structure together. I was aware that I could use my range dictation to escape, but that's just not how I fly. Unless a fight is obviously hopeless, I'm in it all the way.
So, deeper into structure we went. One moment I would be winning, when I received a boost from the repair system, and the next I would be losing, as his dps brought me back down. In the end, though, the timing of my repair cycles was such that I exploded an instant before him - he was between ten and twenty percent structure when I went down.
2011.08.28 15:51:00
Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 3721
Involved parties:
Name: toothslayer (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.9
Corp: Guild of Assassins
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Wolf
Weapon: 150mm Light AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 3375
Name: Serpentis Chief Patroller / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 346
Destroyed items:
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 27
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Small Armor Repairer II
Dropped items:
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 81
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Warp Scrambler II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 400 (Cargo)
Adaptive Nano Plating II
1MN Afterburner II
Sadly, a lag storm meant that I also lost my pod, although it was a pvp clone with only two +2 implants, so the loss was manageable.
Afterthoughts:
A real nail biter of a fight. After the fight I asked in corp chat whether I should have gone in close or stayed at range, and opinions were divided. If I chose poorly, then, it least it was not an obvious mistake.
The fight was so very, very close to being a win. If I had time to change ammo before the fight, I probably would have won. If I had not had rat aggro, I probably would have won. If I had a dps rig instead of a cap rig, I probably would have won. So very,very close.
While my next hull is already rigged for cap, the hull after that will be rigged for dps. It's time I actually gave that setup a try.
FWIW, I'm pretty firmly in the "pull range" camp here, not least because it eliminates neuting as a potential influencing factor. In fact, you could probably have sat a little further out than you did - if your missile range skills (Missile Bombardment and Missile Projection) are both at V, you can comfortably use CN rockets out to 8 km or so, which would have cut that much more from his DPS, especially since barrage isn't a viable ammo type against a Vengeance.
ReplyDeleteWolfs are beasts up close, tho their lack of web dose make the chance of getting under their guns higher. They also comonly have a plate/rep on which makes them even slower. I probialy would have kept range till you could switch to rage then moved in for the kill, but it was a close match and hard to tell how it could have gone
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